CEC rejects candidate Ghukasian’s complaint

During the special sitting today, the Central Election Commission of Armenia rejected the presidential candidate Andrias Ghukasian’s complaint that since the second week of the election campaign, his image has been used in a campaign advertisement of the presidential candidate, incumbent President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan.

The complainant said his image was used in the campaign ad without his consent. In Ghukasian’s opinion, the use of his image may mislead voters. In his application, A. Ghukasian had asked the CEC to ban the use of his image in election campaigning.

When examining the complaint, the CEC stated it has no authority to assess public perception of the information provided by the candidates, as well as to impose sanctions conditioned by public perception.

The CEC decision also says that the law does not prohibit presidential candidates from using images of other people in their campaign advertisements.